


dare to sit and watch what we’ll become

by t15



Category: Teenage Bounty Hunters (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29990103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t15/pseuds/t15
Summary: As Sterling sits in the backseat of her parents car amongst a high pile of suitcases she feels the pounding of her heart slowly rising until it’s in her throat and in danger of coming up along with her breakfast. All because she’s on her way to college and moving into her first dorm.
Relationships: April Stevens/Sterling Wesley
Comments: 27
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know my last story was a senior year/prepping for college thing but this is NOT a continuation. Different universe. Fresh start.

When Sterling was nine she packed her bag with an energy she never felt before. This wasn’t just sheer anticipation. It was excitement, mixed with nerves, mixed with an invigorating level of pride at this newfound independence. She’d never gone to a real sleepover before. Occasionally she and Blair had stayed with their grandparents, but that hardly counted considering they were old, and boring, and family. 

This time though, it was real. She would be sleeping at a friend’s house without Blair. And not just any friend — April Stevens. Her best friend. 

So with that in mind she packed her favorite pajamas, her lucky socks, and the bubble gum toothpaste that Blair always hogged for herself. All of her belongings for the night tucked neatly in the backpack she normally took to school and Sterling held it with care in her lap the whole ride there. 

Now, age eighteen, and hopefully a little more mature, that excitement has faded. 

As Sterling sits in the backseat of her parents car amongst a high pile of suitcases she feels the pounding of her heart slowly rising until it’s in her throat and in danger of coming up along with her breakfast. All because she’s on her way to college and moving into her first dorm. 

She knows this is good for her, knows she loves the campus, but there’s an overwhelming amount of what if’s to go through on the near six hour car ride to Durham, North Carolina.

What if she doesn’t make any friends? What if her roommate smells bad, or is messy, or even worse — what if she’s mean? What if Sterling misses Blair so much her heart explodes? 

It’s only been a week since they dropped Blair off at FSU with Bowser’s old bounty hunting connections and every day Sterling has felt like a huge piece of her is missing. She compared it to losing a limb. Her parents said that was dramatic but Blair of course agreed, insisting over FaceTime that she felt the same way. 

What if that was all Sterling could stomach? What if missing Blair, her parents, and Chloe was too much? Would it feel like all of her limbs were gone instead of just the left arm that her twin had claimed? What if she missed Bowser and Yolanda? Hell, at this point Sterling’s pretty convinced she’s sad about Miss Cathy too.

“Almost there, Sterl,” Anderson calls from the driver's seat. As if she hasn’t been watching the ETA on their navigation system for the last five and a half hours. 

She takes a deep breath. This is normal. Kids go off to college all the time. Blair is at school right now and she’s doing great. Sterling would be doing a lot better if she had been the one to go first and Blair was in the backseat holding her hand, but this is what she’s got and she’s going to get through it. She’s been through worse. 

Change is difficult. She learned that the hard way junior year. First she broke up with Luke, only to discover that she also liked girls (one girl especially), and the exciting high of letting herself explore that came crashing down within a few hours as one reveal after another turned her life upside down. 

Maybe that’s why this change feels so disruptive. After that one terrible night and nearly two years of therapy it seems as if they all just got comfortable with each other and their new normal, and now it was being ripped apart all over again. 

The bathroom that she split with Blair will now be overrun with a group of strangers in their shower shoes. The bedroom that was spacious and all her own, now traded for cramped and shared. The closet, the mattress, the dresser, and the desk are all smaller than anything Sterling has grown up with, which is why Blair warned her not to pack so much. Sterling will have to tell her later that she was right. 

“We can bring the extra stuff back home. It’s no problem.”

“What if she needs something, Anderson?”

“It’s not going to fit.” 

“That’s fine,” Sterling chimes in before it can turn into an argument. She knows her mother is just nervous and desperate not to cry, and that her father is just trying to steady the course. “If I’m missing something important you can always send it to me.”

“Or come for a weekend with it!” 

“Sure, dad.” 

Sterling knows how this goodbye is going to play out. She watched it happen with Blair. They’re going to pull her into a tight hug, whisper so many reassuring things into her ear — how much fun she is going to have (but not too much fun), the new friends she’ll make in no time, that they’re just a phone call away — and they’ll make it look easy for her sake. But Sterling knows from her sister’s drop off experience that as soon as she disappears from the rearview mirror they won’t hold their tears back anymore. It’s that knowledge that makes her squeeze a little tighter, sniffle through a second and then a third _love you_ , and wait until the car disappears from view to go back inside. 

She trudges up the stairs, wiping at her eye and taking deep breaths. With her parents now gone she’s about to walk into her first moment alone with her roommate, and Sterling will be damned if she sniffles like a child through her whole first impression with this stranger. 

“You cried too?” 

Her feet shuffle to a stop in the middle of the room, apparently unable to hide the signs of tearful goodbye. It’s the _too_ that she said that gets Sterling to nod, relieved that she doesn’t have to be embarrassed of her puffy eyes and red nose. 

“How far are you from here?”

“Almost six hours.”

“That’s not too bad,” Rachel points out. “I’m eight hours.” 

“That’s a little worse.”

“Yeah,” she laughs. “Definitely.” 

Sterling knows that they should figure out some boundaries for living in the same space since they don’t actually know each other, but it’s their first night and she doesn’t really want to think too much. She’s too exhausted from an emotionally draining day that began at an early hour. So they just talk, stumbling through the awkward basic questions of likes and dislikes, what their major is, and trying to remember where any of the buildings are. 

“The library is on the other end of campus by the science building.”

“Which science building?”

Rachel pauses. “Maybe we should just print out a map.” 

When Sterling cracks open a second sleeve of Oreos after telling a story about working in the yogurt shop (she doesn’t dare mention bounty hunting), she decides that for now it feels like a sleepover. The dorm, which seems nothing like home, appears to be way more temporary than it actually is and the lack of parental supervision creates what she hopes isn’t a habit of snacking so late into the night. But once the chatter dies down and Rachel interrupts a stiff silence by shutting the light to go to sleep, Sterling remembers that sleepovers aren’t always a constant loop of snacks and laughter — including the very first one she went to. 

That night the light in April’s room quickly went out at the sound of parents arguing downstairs. Her reach for the bedside lamp was like a reflex, hiding them in the dark as harsh words were thrown carelessly around just below them. It sounded nothing like the disagreements Sterling had overheard from her own parents. This was a fight in every sense of the word. 

Mr. Stevens' voice boomed up the stairs in a tone Sterling didn’t think her father even had, and there was a tremor in the otherwise delicate tone of his wife, as well as in the young girl who tugged her blanket up higher. Apparently once the house went dark the family that often baked cookies and watched movies together lost their light as well. 

“You know,” Sterling said, voice drastically softer than the ones downstairs, “Blair and I usually make a fort at night if we’re scared.” 

“I’m not scared.”

“Then why are you squeezing my hand so tight?”

April looked down as if she didn’t even realize she was doing it. “I thought _you_ were scared,” she insisted, loosening her grip like she might let go. 

Sterling held on. “If I was,” she said hypothetically, “would you want to make a fort?”

It was simple then, piling up pillows and blankets, and whispering until they felt better. Now when staring at the ceiling and listening to her roommate snore starts to feel daunting, all Sterling can do is get up to fill her water bottle, in hopes that the walk down the long hallway clears her head. 

For the most part it’s quiet. The fountain trickles slowly in an otherwise empty hall, a few muffled voices can be heard through thin walls, and there’s new noises like footsteps up above and the subtle hum of fluorescent lights that Sterling is sure she’ll get used to in time.

As she’s putting the cap back on her bottle a door clicks shut a few rooms down. Sterling instinctively follows the sound to a familiar face staring blankly back at her for a moment. 

_Should she smile? Should she wave?_

Sterling doesn’t get to decide, because April Stevens just rolls her eyes and disappears into the bathroom without a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back again! hope the little flashback bits weren’t confusing. lmk if they were bc it’s gonna happen again and i could always restructure before we dive in. as always, thank you for reading with me.


	2. Chapter 2

The bell rang to dismiss students from class and Sterling merged into the rush of the Willingham hallway, keeping pace with the rest of her peers. She internally ran a loop of her Spanish verbs — _predecir, ponderar, comprobar_ — hardly paying any attention to the world around her when —

“Did you commit to Duke yet?”

She flinched at her sister's sudden appearance. “God, you scared me,” Sterling said with a hand over her heart. Blair always seemed to find her in crowds. “Not officially.”

“Good. There’s still time.” 

“Time for what?”

Blair leaned over like she had a secret. “I heard through the grapevine that April Stevens is going there.”

“From who?”

“I will not reveal my sources,” she boasted as if this were at all a confidential matter. Sterling rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. Lorna heard it from Hannah B.” 

She laughed. “Lorna is your reliable source?”

“Hey, I never said reliable. I said grapevine, which implies a trickle of gossip.” 

“Whatever,” Sterling shrugged. She was not about to give up her top choice just because of her complicated history with April Stevens — someone she couldn’t even consider an ex since they were never officially together. “It’s a big campus. What are the odds we even see each other?” 

The bathroom door creaks as it swings open, cutting Sterling’s daydream short. She glances into the mirror, transported in an instant from the Willingham hallway and into fluorescent lighting as April steps into the room.

Apparently the odds were pretty good. 

April approaches the sink next to Sterling without even looking up. It’s not done in a way that’s purposeful or shady or cold. She exudes a composed level of nonchalance that Sterling just doesn’t have. Instead Sterling stares at April in the mirror, toothbrush hanging out of her mouth stupidly, wondering what she should do next. 

She is much too friendly for this silence to be anything other than intentional, which it shouldn’t be, there’s no need for continued animosity or anger. They’re both here for a new beginning, a fresh start, and casual conversation is Sterling’s way of acting natural. So with that in mind she spits into the sink and decides to break the ice. 

“How was your ride over?” April doesn’t respond or so much as acknowledge that Sterling spoke, leaving her to answer for herself. “We hit some traffic but it wasn’t too bad.” 

Still there is no response from April. She doesn’t even react to being spoken to. Her hands run under warm water, splashing lightly on her face without so much as batting an eye. Sterling wonders if she’s mad. _Probably_ , she thinks, but Sterling doesn’t know what about. 

She rinses her toothbrush again just for something to do as a pit burrows down deep into her stomach, creating an ache that Sterling knows well. Having years of experience with April and her spite, this tension between them is familiar. She should know to back off, to steer clear of April’s forthcoming bite, but Sterling was never very good at that. She’s never been one to give up early and call it quits before she gets burned. 

“Blair’s ride to school was a disaster. Bumper to bumper traffic. It took seven hours to get to Tallahassee.” 

“What are you doing?”

_She speaks!_

“You don’t think we should…”

“Talk?” April finishes, patting her face dry with a soft towel. Sterling nods. “No, I liked it better when we weren’t.” 

“So you are mad,” she says, more so out loud to herself than anything. 

April keeps packing up her skin care products as if this were all a common occurrence and they don’t have two years worth of hurt feelings and lingering looks to unpack. “I’m definitely not _happy_ that you’re right down the hall from me,” she returns. Her composure is still very intact, brushing Sterling off with such an ease that it radiates like a cold shoulder. “However, I can’t exactly blame you. Duke is obviously a good choice.”

Sterling beams. “Thank you.”

She should’ve known better than to smile, than to take it as a simple compliment without a backhanded attachment, than to think they had found a common ground and April wasn’t one step ahead of her. 

“Truthfully, I’m just surprised you got in.” 

She shrugs her shoulders simple as that, ponytail swaying as she walks away and deflates Sterling with ease.

Apparently they both have their first class of the day at the same time because the bathroom run-in keeps happening. Every morning Sterling starts her day with the same tense, miserable dose of April Stevens. She could go to a different bathroom or wake up five minutes earlier to avoid the whole thing, but Sterling supposes that if April isn’t taking those extra measures then she shouldn’t either. If she is claiming to be over the drama of their past then they have to coexist like normal, unbothered people. 

The only problem: Sterling isn’t so unbothered. 

April doesn’t even look at her when she walks into the bathroom. She doesn’t spare a single glance. Her eyes stay focused on her own task, in her own space, without any regard for the world around her. It’s done so naturally that sometimes Sterling wonders if she’s actually standing there or if this is all some sort of weird dream. No one can be _that_ good at pretending a person doesn’t exist. 

Anytime someone walks past Sterling in the hall or pops into the bathroom, she always gives a polite smile. It’s so ingrained that she often catches herself doing it for April, but April never so much as peeks in her direction and Sterling internally kicks herself every time. It’s infuriating how aloof she is, like the social norm of a closed mouth smile or the reflex of simple eye contact is just so beneath her. 

The thing that really gets under Sterling’s skin is that she knows it’s not beneath April at all. She’s seen April at church, well mannered and mingling with folks. She’s seen April at school, respectful and eager with their teachers. She’s even seen April shake the hand of an opponent that just beat her in debate and Sterling knows from experience that April is anything but a gracious loser. 

It rattles around on her mind for longer than she would care to admit. Regardless of how indifferent April appears to be, it feels personal, and for that reason it carries a sting. Blair advises her to let it go, to let the past be the past, and for the most part Sterling pretends that she does. But something in her aches for a reason and craves the truth, brewing in the silence that comes day after day until one quiet morning where Sterling reaches her boiling point. 

“Okay, what the hell?” 

April looks up, proving that Sterling does in fact exist, though she still plays it off with an untouchable level of cool. “Can I help you?” 

“Yes,” Sterling exclaims, voice squeaking. “You can tell me what you’re doing.”

“I’m _trying_ to floss my teeth,” she returns as if there were nothing else to be discussed. 

Sterling’s forehead creases in disbelief. “How are you so good at this?”

“Good at what?”

“Pretending that I don’t exist.”

“Please,” April scoffs, “I wish I was that good. I’m well aware that you exist. It literally follows me everywhere.” 

“Why did you say you weren’t mad then?”

“What do you want me to be mad about?” April snaps, finally cracking her calm exterior. “That every time I think I have something good going for me you show up and ruin it? Or how you always get to decide what we are, whether we’re talking or not talking, and I’m just supposed to go along for the ride?” 

She shakes her head. “I don’t always decide,” Sterling argues, though it doesn’t sound certain. 

“Yes, you do.” April stands firm in her theory. “First we were friends, then you decided I’d be a better fit for Jessica, then after years of not speaking you decided you wanted to make amends, and then — why are you smiling?”

Sterling didn’t even realize she was doing it. The smile completely snuck up on her. There’s just a certain level of pride that comes from beating April in an argument. “I’m waiting for you to get to the part where you breakup with me.” 

“After _you_ decided that we would come out.” 

Sterling blinks, speechless and once again a step behind. _Does she always decide?_

“Are you satisfied now? Am I mad enough?”

“April,” she sighs. 

April steps back. “I have class.”

For the next few days Sterling doesn’t see her in the bathroom before class. She suspects that April is taking one of those extra steps to avoid her (probably waking up earlier if Sterling had to guess). 

The wounds she thought were old and healed are apparently still fresh on the both of them. Sterling wouldn’t have pushed otherwise and April would be in the bathroom at the start of each day, because April Stevens doesn’t change her ways for just anybody. She’s forceful and determined and if you have a problem then she expects you to stay out of her way, not the other way around. So it must have really bothered her. 

It’s weird to be in a peaceful morning quiet, no longer starting the day on edge with the potential of hostility. Sterling still looks into the mirror every time the door swings open (because it’s a reflex that certain people don’t claim to have) but now at least her greeting smile is reciprocated by a stranger. 

“You’re Sterling, right?”

Sterling nods, mouth still full of toothpaste.

“I’m Sam,” she says, “and I have class with Rachel. I’m not, like, creepily observant.”

Sterling spits into the sink. “No worries. I read the door tags sometimes to figure out names.” 

“Ah.” Sam dips her hands under running water then reaches for the soap. “The problem with that is you know which pair belongs to which room, but you don’t know who is who.”

“Exactly! Like I know room 312 is Jake and Ryan, but I couldn’t tell you who either of them are.” 

“Ryan is blonde with glasses and Jake has a man bun.” 

Sterling nods, gathering her things. She does recall seeing a guy with a man bun when they were all moving in. “Good to know.” 

“Hey,” Sam starts, grabbing her attention before Sterling can head out. “I’m getting dinner with some other girls later. Do you want to come?”

She smiles. “Okay.” 

Sterling feels good about her new morning bathroom run-in — great, in fact. There’s no more tension or worry and she doesn’t have to carry it around all day in the form of a knot in her neck. She doesn’t have to waste her energy post-April-Stevens to bounce back into her usual positive mood. Sterling doesn’t even have to pretend not to be bothered by how effortlessly she can be ignored. 

It’s exciting. She gets to kick off the day with an energy boost, putting a little pep in her step as she walks to class thinking about her potential new friend and their plans to hang out. She lets this high carry her through the day, not being bothered by small things and surprisingly not having many small things to avoid being bothered by. Everything around her just flows with an ease she hasn’t experienced in a while. 

When Sterling gets her food at the dining hall she tunes out the noise of clacking dishes and various voices to scan the large crowd for a girl she’s only spoken to once, while she was still in pajamas, and Sterling suddenly has no real idea of what this girl looks like. 

“Sterling!” 

She follows to where her name is being called, eyes landing on Sam, who is waving her over with a friendly smile. Sterling starts to walk in Sam’s direction, noticing two other girls at the table. Her first thought is an eager one of _more friends_ but as Sterling gets closer she feels her neck tighten. 

“This is Lindsay and April,” Sam says, pointing to each girl respectively. “They live down the hall.”

Sterling tries her best to reciprocate the other girl’s kind smile but her eyes land on April, jaw clenched and staring down at her food. Her hands are sweating so much Sterling fears she might lose her grip on this plate if she doesn’t set it down. “Hey,” she greets as general as possible and takes the open seat across from April. 

_What the heck does she do now?_

Sterling is certain April doesn’t want these strangers to know about any of their past connections — friends, enemies, more than friends, back to enemies — but does April want her to act normal or like they’ve never met? 

She stares for a moment, willing April to look at her, knowing that in one glance they’ll be on the same page. They’ve always been good at reading each other. Not nearly as good as she and Blair are (which would really come in handy right now) but Sterling will take what she can get. 

However, she doesn’t get much. April doesn’t meet her gaze at all. She avoids it just like she did in the bathroom and Sterling is left clueless to dive in blind. 

Luckily Sam and Lindsay carry a lot of the conversation, already on the fast track to friendship. They’re in the same major, they both have alumni parents, and they’re trying to do long distance with their boyfriends — although Lindsay’s isn’t going as well. Sterling jumps in when she can, mostly whenever April isn’t involved, and April seems to have the same approach. Even without exchanging that look they still managed to land on common ground. 

It’s strange to see April so relaxed with potential new friends. At Willingham she always seemed to be competing for some sense of control with Hannah B. and Ezekiel, though they posed little to no threat for someone like April. There isn’t as much of that intensity to her now, dropping her guard down a notch and in turn loosening up. But even under this newfound ease, there’s still an edge to her that Sterling can pinpoint as frustration with this situation. An internal struggle of walking the line between trying to uphold what Sterling knows her to be and letting it all go into how April wants them to see her. 

“I miss syllabus week already,” Lindsay says.

Sam is quick to agree. “I’ve been swamped ever since. It was so nice getting out of class early and barely having assignments.” 

April, for as good as she is at hiding her feelings, can’t hold back her judgement. Her nose scrunches in what looks like genuine disgust, catching Sam’s attention.

“What?” she wonders. 

“I was kind of bored during syllabus week.”

“She was,” Lindsay confirms. “Actually did her textbook reading.” 

“The whole point is that you get to be a little lazy.” 

Sterling laughs. “April doesn’t do lazy.” 

She continues to poke at her food, not even aware of the abrupt silence that fell over their table. 

“You guys know each other?”

That is all it takes for Sterling to realize the mistake. Her smile drops the second she finds two pairs of eyes quizzically shifting between her and April, waiting for an answer. “We’re from the same town,” she says, voice too shaky to appear nonchalant. 

“Were you friends?” 

Sterling glances over to April, who, if looks could kill, would’ve just committed a _brutal_ murder. 

“Something like that.” 

The harsh glare that April sports eases in an instant when the focus shifts back to her. “Wow, what a small world,” Sam exclaims.

“Very,” April returns through the gritted teeth of a forced smile. 

Sterling gulps. In a sudden turn of events she thinks she prefers the tense quiet of a morning bathroom run-in.


End file.
